Add machine vision to Arduino with OpenMV!

We have covered developments with the OpenMV project before on OpenBehavior, and they’ve just added a new feature that will be of interest to many behavioral neuroscientists. The OpenMV camera is a machine-vision camera that is programmed in Python.  The developers (Kwabena W. Agyeman and Ibrahim Abdelkader) have implemented many machine vision algorithms on the camera, making it easy to track objects, faces, colors, etc, in real time on a pocket sized device.  We covered the Rodent Arena Tracker (RAT) earlier this year, which used this camera to do the heavy lifting.

But what if you already have a behavioral task going and want to add some machine vision magic to it?  They have just added an Arduino Interface Library that allows you easily do this!  You can use the OpenMV camera to do the machine vision and return data to your Arduino program to control a behavioral task.  Want to open a solenoid when the mouse enters a certain part of an arena?  Want to give the mouse a pellet whenever you smile at the camera?  This update enables the best of both worlds, as it allows you to use the Arduino development environment and all of the Arduino compatible boards and peripherals, while also gaining easy access to machine vision routines with the OpenMV camera.

We love the OpenMV project and look forward to seeing what they come up with next!